Brian Winchester is sentenced to 20 years Tuesday at a Leon County Courthouse on charges of armed burglary and kidnapping at gunpoint of his estranged wife Denise Winchester last year.(Photo: Joe Rondone/Democrat)Buy Photo

No suspects have been named in the murder case of Mike Williams, the Tallahassee man now known to have been killed 17 years ago.

But court documents show fear of what Williams’ former wife would tell police about his disappearance drove his former best friend to kidnap her in 2016.

In an interview with investigators, anesthesiologist Dr. Stephen Mnookin said he went to lunch with Brian Winchester hours after the Aug. 5, 2016, incident involving Denise Merrell Williams, whom he married five years after Mike Williams’ vanished.

At Village Pizza off Thomasville Road, Mnookin said a nervous Winchester told him the police were “after him” and kept contacting him, warning that once their divorce was final “his wife is going to say something about this guy who died 10 or 12 or 15 years ago.”

That guy was Mike Williams.

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Mike Williams(Photo: Democrat files)

Winchester was his close friend and Denise Williams was his wife when he disappeared the morning of Dec. 16, 2000. Though evidence from what was never considered a crime scene indicated it was implausible, it was accepted for years Mike Williams accidentally fell from his boat on Lake Seminole, drowned and was eaten by alligators.

An extensive search of the lake in Jackson County found no trace of the 31-year-old real estate appraiser, and seven months later Denise Williams had her North Florida Christian High school sweetheart and husband of six years declared dead. She was then able to collect at least $1.5 million in life insurance benefits, including payments from a $1 million policy Winchester sold her husband six months before he vanished.

Five years later, Winchester and Denise William married. The marriage began to fall apart as early as 2012, in part because of what he said in long, rambling letters was his sex addiction. In 2015 she finally filed for divorce - much to Winchester’s distress.

In court documents related to the kidnapping case, Mnookin said Denise Williams wouldn’t answer her estranged husband’s frantic calls about her telling police what happened to Mike Williams, so he hatched a plan.

He hid in her car that steamy August morning and surprised her on her way to work from the way-back of her Suburban and put a gun to her ribs.

“That was his way of getting to talk to her,” Mnookin told interviewers. “That’s why he did all this.”

When reached by the Tallahassee Democrat, Mnookin declined to comment, as did Winchester's attorney Tim Jansen.

While records related to Winchester’s closed kidnapping case have been combed to remove details of Mike Williams’ open and active case, the two are intimately connected. State Attorney Jack Campbell has said he hopes information gleaned from the Winchester case will help solve the old mystery.

Until last month, Mike Williams was considered a suspicious missing person. But a day after Winchester was sentenced to 20 years in prison for kidnapping his now ex-wife, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement revealed they’d found Mike Williams’ remains at the end of dead-end Gardner Road in northern Leon County, just five miles from where he grew up.

Agents provided no details but said the new evidence proved he was murdered.

“Our investigation is active,” FDLE spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger said in an email this week. “At this point, we have no additional information to provide.”

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Sources confirm Mike Williams' remains were found at the end of Gardner Road. Gardner Road is off North Meridian Road and dead ends into eastern Carr Lake, an extension of Lake Jackson.
Ryan Dailey/Democrat

Sources confirm Mike Williams' remains were found at the end of Gardner Road. Gardner Road is off North Meridian Road and dead ends into eastern Carr Lake, an extension of Lake Jackson.
Ryan Dailey/Democrat

Sources confirm Mike Williams' remains were found at the end of Gardner Road. Gardner Road is off North Meridian Road and dead ends into eastern Carr Lake, an extension of Lake Jackson.
Ryan Dailey/Democrat

Sources confirm Mike Williams' remains were found at the end of Gardner Road. Gardner Road is off North Meridian Road and dead ends into eastern Carr Lake, an extension of Lake Jackson.
Ryan Dailey/Democrat

Sources confirm Mike Williams' remains were found at the end of Gardner Road. Gardner Road is off North Meridian Road and dead ends into eastern Carr Lake, an extension of Lake Jackson.
Ryan Dailey/Democrat

Sources confirm Mike Williams' remains were found at the end of Gardner Road. Gardner Road is off North Meridian Road and dead ends into eastern Carr Lake, an extension of Lake Jackson.
Ryan Dailey/Democrat

Sources confirm Mike Williams' remains were found at the end of Gardner Road. Gardner Road is off North Meridian Road and dead ends into eastern Carr Lake, an extension of Lake Jackson.
Ryan Dailey/Democrat